The Best Prayer

"The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, 

knowing that that goodness can reach down 

to our lowest depths of need."

~Julian of Norwich

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Amazing Teaching!

This video is 10 minutes long but so worth the time spent watching it. She taught cooking students to cook paying attention and then with the intention of love, and the results surprised everyone. Even the food tasted better! And an added plus is I learned a better way to chop up onions.

Contemplative Practices

© The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
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Hand = Image of Divine

Bede would hold up his hand. Imagine that that the 5 world religions were the fingers of your hand. If you look at your fingertips, they are so different. If your thumb represents Christianity and your little finger represents Buddhism, these 2 religions appear to be 180 degrees apart.

But as you follow your fingers down to your palm, they draw closer together. And so do the different religions. When you reach the palm, the fingers merge into one space. As do the religions, all converge onto the same sacred concept of the Divine.

Go to Bede Griffiths, Spirituality for Today for lovely and profound thoughts about this mystic.

Bede Griffiths OSB Cam^[1] (17 December 1906 – 13 May 1993), born Alan Richard Griffiths and also known by the end of his life as Swami Dayananda ("bliss of compassion"), was a British-born Indian Benedictine monk who lived in ashrams in South India and became a noted yogi. He has become a leading thinker in the development of the dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism. Griffiths was a part of the Christian Ashram Movement.

Every Breath

With thanks to Ellie at Meditation Matters.

Oh, to remember this! Especially on vacation--and when busy, busy, busy.

Each breath is a gift of Life.

Mind the Gap!

Today in our lectio divina group, someone talked of the advice her swami gave her awhile back--When obsessing about bad events, memories, or whatever, visualize them as different cars of a train. Then notice the GAPS between the cars--those are the spaces that were NOT bad. So there is happiness (or at least not unhappiness) amidst crises.

This reminds me of what I have been reading about Teilhard in Towards a New Mysticism: Teilhard de Chardin and Eastern Religions by Ursula King. (This is an out-of-print book, but reasonably priced used copies are available.):

Teilhard's time as a stretcher-bearer in the front-lines of WWI was his choice so as not to "enjoy the relative privileges of an army chaplain" (27) . "The immensity of the war, the daily life at the Front, and face to face encounters with death provided a catalysing influence through which the mystical seer turned writer" (27-8).

"It was here, amidst blood, death and terror, that his tremendous vision of mankind belonging together first began to take shape" (28).

In fact, "when Teilhard's war letters were eventually published in 1961, Francois Mauriac commented: ' The most optimistic view a Christian thinker has ever held of this criminal world was conceived at Verdun; this frantic cry of hope has been uttered from an abyss. . . The same sort of courage which was necessary to hold out in the trenches of Verdun, was also necessary for conceiving thoughts as joyful as these, so permeated with hope'"(28).

Somehow Teilhard became aware of the Divine interconnecting the people, living and dying. The gaps showed him that surrounding each dark moment was Love.

So in our own visualizations of the difficult things we've endured or are worrying about, imagine each a railway car--So mind the gaps!

Remember that God is in the gaps.

Be Silent

Surrender in Christ

God said,

"Dear child, I have shown you that no guilt on earth can be atoned by experiencing suffering simply as pain to be endured. Only when suffering is accepted with longing, love, and heartfelt contrition does it have meaning. The value is not in the suffering, but in the soul's God-focused desire, while suffering. This desire and all other virtues possess value and life solely through my only begotten-Son--Christ crucified--because his surrender is the power of your love. Through virtue, the soul can follow his sacrificial footsteps. This surrendering in Christ is the only way suffering has value in reconciling the soul to me.

"This reconciliation is accomplished through a gentle, unifying love born from the sweet knowledge of my goodness and generated through the godly sorrow of the heart discovering its sinful nature. This self-awareness gives birth to a genuine contempt for one's sin and for the soul's selfish sensuality. It also creates a vibrant, sustaining humility. So you see, those who know genuine contrition and humility can suffer without growing impatient. In fact, that is how they repent."

~~Catherine of Siena: Dialogue

Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. Following Christ: A Lenten Reader to Stretch Your Soul. Brewster, Mass.: Paraclete Press, 2010. 99.

This is also posted today at the RevGals' prayer blog A Place for Prayer. Prayers are posted there daily, so please visit here, too!

Breathtaking Presence

With more awareness we may discover
that small gaps in our daily round
can be places of silence. These are the found times
or rather the moments in which we ourselves are found.

Mostly they come when we are waiting:
in the doctor's office, on the telephone,
in traffic jams and the checkout line.

In just those moments we have an opportunity
to turn our attention to our physical being,
to the rhythm of our breath,
to the texture and feel of things around us.

By noticing particulars we can also begin
to notice the space in which they are held. . .
the vastness that holds everything--
the great lap of silence.

These waiting moments in our daily round
can turn out to be treasures. We can allow them
to support us instead of distracting us
or blocking us.

Here in each day is a wealth of time
we can take advantage of. They are breath breaks.
If we learn to rest and renew in them
our lives will go from disconnection and haste
to breathtaking presence.

~~Gunilla Norris

Norris, Gunila. Inviting Silence: Universal Principles of Meditation. Blue Bridge: NY, 2004. 21-22.

Jesus' Message

My friend Paige (whose husband did my shoulder surgery) gave me a book for Christmas that I will soon be reading: The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe by Ilia Delio (only $9.99 in the Kindle edition). When I had first expressed interest in this book, I had not noticed its subtitle relating to Catholicism.

Thus, when I glanced through it, I was struck by a heading--"Was Jesus Catholic?" Since Jesus was not even a "Christian," I was interested in this section. And here is a short part that hit me (where I agreed!):

". . .If we are to draw a connection between the word catholic and the mission of Jesus, we would have to rely on its root meaning, 'according to the whole,' for what Jesus preached was not a church defending itself in the face of opposition but the in-breaking reign of God. Based on what we know from the Gospels we can make several inferences: Jesus was not a 'catholic" but a Jew, and the reign of God preached by Jesus was not a universal concept to be mandated but a change in lifestyle and direction. The central message of Jesus, the reign of God is a subtle and powerful reality far more dynamic than any kind of realm we can conceive. Mark Hathaway and Leonardo Boff write that the actual word Jesus used in Aramaic to speak of God's reign--malkuta--is 'much more similar to the concept of the Tao or to the Buddhist Dharma than to any kind of kingdom we might imagine.' 'The word's roots,' they write, 'elicit the image of a fruitful arm poised to create, or a coiled spring that is ready to unwind with all the verdant potential of the earth.' Malkuta connotes an 'empowering vision based on the divine presence in the cosmos, liberating and empowering a process toward communion, differentiation and interiority.' What broke through in the person of Jesus was a new consciousness and relatedness to God that ushered in the world a new way of being God-centered, earth-centered, and in communion with one another." (62)

(The book quoted in what I quoted is The Tao of Liberation: Exploring the Ecology of Transformation by Mark Hathaway and Leonardo Boffo.)

There are too many books I want/need to read!!

Silence

Nothing in the universe resembles God more than silence.

— Meister Eckhart,
as quoted by John O’Donohue in
Four Elements: Reflections on Nature

With thanks to Carl McColman.

Sink into the Silence.

By David Hayward at Naked Pastor

This stays in my mind

I keep pondering the truth in this paragraph:

"Your path is unique and your experiences of the Divine, of the Self and of the light and shadow, will be just as they need to be for you. Who can say why the Divine chooses to reveal herself in one form to one person and in a different form to another? What is important is that we respect and honor all different forms, religions, and spiritual traditions through which the Divine manifests. We can recognize the unity of God's Love and Presence in all of them. For me they are gifts of God's power of Self-revelation, the Holy Spirit, the divine Kundalini Shakti. She creates so many paths, bridges, techniques, insights, and perceptions in her relentless pursuit of revealing God to humanity. It's all party of her play of revealing God to God. Who wants to waste their breath arguing about whether the Divine should be called Brahman, Allah, Yahweh, the Void or Consciousness? Let's leave that to those who thrive on divisiveness. For Lovers of God all that is important is how to fully give our hearts and our hands in service of the Lord. How can we align ourselves with the wiff of the Divine to manifest love and compassion in each moment? Ask yourself how can I do that in relation to my wife, my children, my co-workers, my environment and all others?" (233)

Edwards, Lawrence. The Soul's Journey: Guidance from the Divine Within. San Jose: Writer's Showcase, 2000.

God Glop

"At some point all our 'gods' must make room for God. Bede Griffiths at the end of his life spoke of how unfortunate it is that we can't find another word for God, because that word is so loaded with all our conceptions. The case is often the same with all our 'God language' which comes out of our mouths sounding like so much undigested glop, quack-quack."

Consiglio, Cyprian. Prayer in the Cave of the Heart: The Universal Call to Contemplation. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2010. 65.

Why are you unhappy?

Why are you unhappy?

Because 99.9% of everything you think,

And everything you do,

Is for your self,

And there isn't one.


~~Wei Wu Wei

(I found this in Grace and Grit:Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by Ken Wilber on page 243. Now I want to learn more about Wei Wu Wei, who was born in Ireland in 1895!)

Hell

I believe that we make our own Heaven or Hell for ourselves here on earth. To have faith long ago, I had to give up the idea of the reward of Heaven or punishment of Hell, because I kept second-guessing myself, asking: "Do I believe only for the promised end?"

I was helped greatly by Father Kelly Nemeck, founder of Lebh Shomea, House of Prayer, retreat center in Sarita, TX, who spoke once about Hell in 2000. He said he did not believe in Hell, but even if it does exist in physical space, it is empty! Father Kelly is a contemplative, a spiritual director, an author of many books, and someone I admire greatly.

In classes at Oblate School of Theology, I learned that some scholars believe that Jesus referred to Gehenna for the place we interpret as "Hell." Gehenna was the garbage dump for ancient Jerusalem; the refuse was constantly burning. Poor people lived around the areas, trying to find means to live.

I have friends who fear the prospect of Hell. And so I was struck by Ken Wilber's words in his book about his wife's cancer and eventual death, Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber:

(this is a conversation between Treya and Ken)

Treya: "And you're saying that not just the eastern mystics but also the Western mystics actually define sin and Hell as being due to the separate self?"

Ken: "The separate self and its loveless grasping, desiring, avoiding--yes, definitely. It's true that the equation of Hell or samsara with the separate self is strongly emphasized in the East, particularly in Hinduism and Buddhism. But you find an essentially similar theme in the writings of the Catholic, Gnostic, Quaker, Kabbalistic, and Islamic mystics. My favorite is from the remarkable William Law, an 18th-century Christian mystic from England; I'll read it to you:

'See here the whole truth in short. All sin, death, damnation, and hell is nothing else but this kingdom of self, or the various operations of self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking which separate the soul from God and end in eternal death and hell.'
~~William Law

"Or remember the great Islamic mystic Jalaluddin Rumi's famous saying:

'If you have not seen the devil, look at your own self.'
~~Rumi

"Or the Sufi Abi 'l-Khayr:

'There is no Hell but selfhood, no Paradise but selflessness.'
~~Abi 'l-Khayr

"This is also behind the Christians mystics' assertion that, as the Theologia Germanica put it, nothing burns in Hell but self-will." (85-86)

Swami Abhishiktananda

Abhishiktananda
(Fr. Henri Le Saux)
1910-1973

Henri Le Saux grew up in Brittany, France and excelled in his studies, which continued after he joined the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Anne of Kergonan when he was 19 years old. He felt particularly drawn to the Greek Fathers, especially Gregory Nazianzen’s Hymn to God Beyond All Names:

You who are beyond all, what other name befits you?

No words suffice to hymn you. Alone you are ineffable.

Of all beings you are the End, you are One, you are all, you are none.

Yet not one thing, nor all things. . . . You alone are the Unnameable.

Such Emptiness was a prelude to his call to India, which became an obsession around 1934, when he was only 24 years old, before his ordination. It took 14 more years of persistent asking, writing, and waiting before Henri was sent to India (in 1948), which he never left. He traveled in India and struggled with his Christian faith and the mystical experience of advaita (non-duality).

"He remained a priest, and he remained a Benedictine monk but he was a long way from the average expectations of a Catholic priest. He was beyond all structures, yet he remained a disciple of Jesus. As far as the church is concerned, he never left it but he did become distanced from it. He came to see more and more clearly the false duality of the church, for instance, in regarding people as active or contemplative. In the end even the Mass became unimportant: he could celebrate or not. Everything was divine, so it didn't really matter. But when he did say Mass, it was a momentous occasion, for he was at the level of knowing beyond any words." (38)

De Boulay, Shirley. Swami Abhishiktananda: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007.

The other night when I could not sleep, I found an old used copy of Abhishiktananda's book "Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience." I am currently reading it again (for the "first" time) and then re-discovered Shirley Du Boulay's book on my shelves, too. So I am newly intrigued by this amazing mystic who experienced Christ from the depth of Hindu spirituality.

Google ABHISHIKTANANDA to find out more about him. A good resource is here, with a collection of articles by him here.

And what prompted me to start writing about him was this quote that I boldly highlighted in Du Boulay's book:

"Only to the extent that you are not attached to any thought, to any point of view, to anything at all, that you do not desire or fear anything, that you do not feel delight or sorrow in anything--only so can the void be created in your intellect. If I am worried about what will happen tomorrow, about what I will have to decide tomorrow, I will not be able to reach this void. I must have absolute faith in this mystery of the beyond into which I throw myself. Whether I call it Christ, Shiva, Parama-atman does not matter. Total acceptance that someone is there to receive me, to take complete charge of me, or rather that in the end I will find myself set free from all my present limitations."
~~July 27, 1955, Diary

De Boulay, Shirley. Swami Abhishiktananda: Essential Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007.

That's detachment.

God in our emptiness

When Feeling Down and Out

by Ronald Rolheiser

"At the end of the day our task is to recognize that God is in the silence, the frustration, the loneliness, the emptiness of our lives.

"We should never be shocked at our own emptiness, nor should we run from it and think that God is dead. God is in the emptiness. But the God who is found there is not God as we imagine Him. The God we find in loneliness and emptiness is the real God, the God that nobody can look at and live because that God is too real, too ineffable, too infinite, too unnameable, too wild, and too much pure fire to be captured in any concepts, words, imaginations, or even feelings. That God, of course, can be met and known; but, this side of eternity, perhaps that God is most easily met precisely when our own words sound flat and empty."

Go here to read the rest of the article.

If you would like to receive Fr. Rolheiser's twice-weekly column via email, subscribe here.

Thomas Merton's 96th Birthday

Thomas Merton
by David Mah

Blue Eyed Ennis prompted me to post about Thomas Merton today, because of her enriching post about his birthday. Just before I looked at her blog, I had been talking to a friend in Houston who mentioned reading about Thomas Merton. These connections brought this contemplative to mind, especially as he is so often quoted, even though he died in 1968.

“The things I thought were so important – because of the effort I put into them – have turned out to be of small value. And the things I was never able to either to measure or to expect, were the things that mattered.” (Thomas Merton)

First off, where I found the icon picture was here, which has a short article entitled "Father Louie and the Little Sister." and then Blue Eyed Ennis has various quotes and links on her post. Please look!

Stirrings

I remember when I was about three years old that I thought it was magical when I stirred a few chocolate chips into my bowl of warm vanilla pudding, it changed color and became chocolate!

Whenever we start to mix something into a liquid, the first stirring does not do much. It takes successive revolutions of the spoon to get things combined. At first, not much happens!

While at Lebh Shomea, I read a book about The Cloud of Unknowing by William Johnston and was struck by a short section about "stirring":

"The true stirring of God does not come through any of the senses, nor does it come from reasoning but from abundance of love welling up in the heart:

"'Look that thy stirrings to silence or to speaking, to fasting or to eating, to oneliness or to company, whether they come from within of abundance of love and devotion in spirit and not from without by windows of they bodily wits, they ears and thine eyes.'" (121)

Johnston, William. The Mysticism of the Cloud of Unknowing. NY: Desclee Co., 1967.

First stirrings of love or happiness may not be noticed, but in awareness these may be discerned earlier; then acted upon sooner.

In more modern language, we might say "nudges." However, I prefer to think of the stirrings, like the ways I began to stir the chocolate chips into the warm pudding.

and there were no words

and you held me and there were no words
and there was no time and you held me
and there was only wanting and
being held and being filled with wanting
and I was nothing but letting go
and being held
and there were no words and there
needed to be no words
and there was no terror only stillness
and I was wanting nothing and
it was fullness and it was like aching for God
and it was touch and warmth and
darkness and no time and no words and we flowed
and I flowed and I was not empty
and I was given up to the dark and
in the darkness I was not lost
and the wanting was like the fullness and I could
hardly hold it and I was held and
you were dark and warm and without time and
without words and you held me

~~Janet Morley

Morley, Janet. "#71." The Book of a Thousand Prayers. Ed. Angela Ashwin. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002. 41.

This prayer is also posted at A Place for Prayer today. Please visit this ministry blog of RevGalBlogPals.